MERSEA ISLAND ESSEX ADDERS

Ahhh Mersea Island an excellent reptile site and Dougal
is a top lad.

That hibernacula is looking great - I helped build it you
see - I have created four in this area (Mersea & Peldon)
and they work really well. The hibernacula in the picture
was dug by hand - Dougal and a young lad called Shaun

It was almost a metre deep - 2 metres wide and 5 metres
long - when I arrived I was pretty amazed as it was 1
days digging - they did very well!

It took us less than a few hours to fill it lol!

On the signage front I think that they have it just right
- if the signs were any more forceful then I would
suggest that they are counter productive. Cudmore Grove
is an interesting case study as we have data for the
adders over the last 7 years and it has clearly shown
that adders have moved into the CP from the seawall as
the EA heavily cut the wall and so the adders have
dispersed into the country park. However with the numbers
of people (including over 90 on reptile walks) the
disturbance is possibly having an effect on adder numbers
being detected each spring - the trend is downwards over
the last 5 years

An important example where the Make the Adder Count
methodology is useful to record the status of adder
colonies.

Another Essex Country Park has an opposite attitude
towards the public and its adders - the adders are not
publicised at all - the one reptile walk which was
organised with myself led to these being banned as a
bunch of the Essex Amphibian & Reptile Club turned up
with snake hooks coming out of their ears. The Ranger
decided on that day that he did not want to have reptile
walks.

Dougal at Cudmore Grove believes he is doing important PR
work for the adders with plenty of people coming to the
Park to see adders in the wild.

Last year he had 90 people and they found 9 adult adders
who behaved well enough for everyone to see them very
close up.

Back in at the other country park though the adders
number around 45 - with groups of 2 or 3 and up to 15 or
so in the spring. The Ranger knows where each colony is
and he intends to keep the adders under wraps as best he
can - hence I have not revealed the name of the country
park.

The adder count data on the country park has shown that
the numbers are stable so the difference in management of
the adders could explain this but we need more data

J

(The hibernacula was on country file btw)




Edited by herpetologic2

Hi Tim & Jon I would like to point out that Dougal Urquat the warden of Cudmore, was most helpful in pointing out the known spots as you can see this is a special place as far as adder colonies go in Essex , as I have seen the demise of them in several areas in the county over the years due to intrusion by dog walkers etc, that is why I think some places should have minimum fencing not to restrictive just to deter people from ruining their habitat as ball games + dogs do not go hand in hand with the wildlife. keith

Hi J Yes Epping forest was a great place in the 1950/60s that has now been ruined by over management and tidying up. Also there was a few at Fordham heath near Colchester that have now dissapeared, be interested if you have seen any around Donnyland area on the Mersea road Roman river area ? as I see you mentioned the Peldon area keith

Re Backwarden, It's no surprise the animals are
dispersing into gardens, the traditional spring dispersal
area is now a wasteland. So Jon you have taken on board
now the head count is increasing at the main hibernation
site for all the wrong reasons? In the past you seemed to
think it was a good sign.

I also seem to remember the last major clearance was
thought of as all good stuff at the time because they
were bunging in a few hibernacula as they wrecked the
site.. not much good if there is nowhere with suitable
vegetative cover for the animals to disperse into during
the spring.

The adder populations on the adjacent Danbury Common BTW
appear to have crashed in the past two years at 3 of the
4 locations I know of. No surprise as conservation there
consists of pulling out all the vegetation with tractors,
same old story a few adders left in isolated patches that
persisted for a while.

I'm surprised Jon you think only a few adder sites in
Essex are regularly monitored, you perhaps mean only a
few sites are monitored by yourself or your associates

Hi Gemma glad to hear from you on the sight as you have been a bit quiet of recent keith